Rep. Jared Polis talks about NSA in town hall meeting

Congressman stopped in Berthoud to address the issues of his constituents

By James Garcia Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
08/25/2013 08:00:06 PM MDT

Jared Polis

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) continued his ongoing tour of town hall meetings in the Northern Colorado region during the congressional summer recess with a stop in Berthoud on Sunday afternoon. The meeting was heavily centered on the activities of the National Security Agency.

After concern about privacy from government surveillance was voiced by many of the nearly 20 individuals in attendance, Polis was quick to bring up accusations of NSA members spying on significant others, in what he said is an abuse of the PRISM data mining program.

"We are not given the information we need to do meaningful oversight on your behalf. I'm reading about this in the paper just as you are," Polis said.

He added, "This is ridiculous. We ran an amendment, with Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, to effectively debunk the PRISM program."

His statement was met mostly with claps and cheers, despite the amendment being seven representatives short of passing in the House. He said someone should be fired over the abuses, which he feels derived from the Patriot Act. He voted against the Patriot Act twice.

"This is not a partisan issue, there are Democrats and Republicans on both sides of this. I'm very proud of the Colorado delegation. All seven members of Congress from Colorado voted for the amendment to restrict the NSA," Polis said.

He also called the Drug Enforcement Agency a "rogue agency," which has shown a militarization that "doesn't make sense."

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Another topic discussed at Sunday's meeting was reducing small to midsize business tax rates from 35 percent to 25 percent. He suggested it would be beneficial to smaller businesses and could be a way to get the momentum necessary to begin discussing individual taxation reform. Fracking, the homeland security budget and immigration were all briefly touched on as well.

Polis is a member of a group called No Labels, nearly 70 Republicans and Democrats who have banded together to ignore partisan lines and to work together to stop what he said is an inefficient method of legislation, especially when it comes to drafting the federal budget.

"We've found our sea legs ... People are actually talking together on both sides of the aisle instead of one party's leadership blaming the other party's leadership," he said.

The organization proposed the No Budget, No Pay Act, which simply states if Congress doesn't pass a budget on time, the members won't be paid. Polis said this wasn't as effective as he'd hoped as different budgets were proposed, but still a little action was taken as far as the reformation of federal spending.

Toward the end of the meeting, after being hounded by questions regarding the constitutionality of The Patriot Act, federal versus local government power and the constitution itself, Polis said, "I'm not a constitutional scholar. I took maybe one undergraduate course on it."

In the crowd was Colorado Sen. Kevin Lundberg, of Berthoud, who challenged him on this point, suggesting he should read up on the Constitution.

"I believe that every lawmaker who raises their right hand and swears an oath on the Constitution, should be an expert on it, be they a member of Congress or a member of the state legislature," Lundberg said.

"I've read it, several times. I know it. Does the fact that President Obama is a constitutional scholar give you confidence in his job?" Polis replied.

He then expressed the importance of having a diversity of professionals representing the people in Congress, such as teachers, lawyers and businessmen.

Arguing that certain authority needed to be exerted by the federal government on issues like immigration, health care and national defense, he acknowledged that many issues should be handled by local and state governments, such as fracking, marijuana legality and gun laws.

"We are a diverse country and sometimes we can solve that by addressing issues within our communities better than having a one-size-fits-all approach," Polis said.

He will hold his next town hall meeting 4-5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Morgan Library Event Hall, Colorado State University, 1201 Central Avenue Mall, Fort Collins.

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